Reflections by Michael Krimm
June 18, 2009
It’s definitely time for me to share a little bit from my experiences in India. I can’t believe I’ve been back for two weeks already! You probably know how these things go: for two weeks it’s like you’re in another world, it’s almost magical. And then you come back and resume your regular life, and life rushes in. But I will say, I was blessed incredibly on this trip, and I have come back with renewed energy to live in this, my world, with vision and purpose to serve him. Rather than trying to recount everything we did, I thought I’d share some over the major themes that came through for me on this trip:
1. Hope and joy. The name of the organization we visited is “Asha Deep”, which means “lamp of hope.” Or something like that; I didn’t pick up that much Hindi. Hope and joy are probably the emotional impressions that will stick with me the longest from this experience. Which is really kind of unexpected, given we where in a place where everything around seemed chaotic, different, impoverished, crazy. But the children, whether they were the ones I saw in classrooms at the school, or out on the streets picking through garbage for a living, would always be laughing, looking curiously at us foreigners, running around, playing. I saw makeshift classrooms full of preschoolers experiencing a little oasis of caring and learning for a couple hours. A school full of 300 slum kids getting a K-12 education that the government wouldn’t otherwise provide. A community center in the middle of a community of rag-pickers (people who make their living picking through garbage) where teenage girls shared their aspirations of becoming teachers, doctors, social workers. And of course, the 50 boys and 50 girls living in the orphanage we were staying at, who loved each other as brothers and sisters, played together, worshipped God together, and opened their home (it really was a home) to us.
It was so encouraging to see the impact of the work of this mission. What I saw really renewed my excitement that we can bring love into this world in tangible ways. As mundane as my day to day may be at times, this experience will be a reminder of the broader world I’m part of and that I can make an impact here. In one neighborhood Asha Deep runs these day care centers that people host in their homes, and we’d enter a cramped little hut in the middle of the slum, and there’d be 10 kids waving at us and learning A-B-Cs on the walls. Outside they’d be playing in the trash, but because of someone’s care and initiative, they got to learn ABCs. Awesome! At the orphanage, the older kids, especially some of the girls, had amazing poise and confidence. I was reminded of the ambitious American teenager that’s the product of an upper-middle class education, does debate and that kind of thing, and aspires to go to an Ivy League - except with more humility. The children in the orphanage do not experience traditional family and are near the bottom of their country’s social order, but they are not broken people; they know they are loved by God. The contrast between where they are at and where they could have ended up if they stayed on the streets incredible.
2. Learning just a little bit about poverty. The poverty is like nothing we know in the west, of course. In the rag picking community, it’s not just people in less comfortable physical surroundings than we are used to, it’s fellow men and women, the glory of God’s creation, spending their lives picking through others’ refuse. Yet these people often manage to carry themselves with dignity. Even in the worst of the slum conditions people take care of themselves, with their clothes clean and the women dressed in their sarees looking beautiful. (As an aside, clothes washing is apparently a national obsession, and trust me, it’s a big investment of time, as I figured out waiting days for my socks and underwear to dry).
For me this wasn’t the type of experience where I figured out there’s poor people in the world for the first time in my life. It was more subtle than that. Because we lived at the orphanage, we pretty much shared in their life, which meant no electricity half the time, washing with buckets, no meat, and generally very decrepit infrastructure. None of this is intolerable. But what was weird was that I kept seeing things that could be better and thinking how easy/cheap it would be to fix, or how nice it’d be to have a coke with lunch, or why don’t the kids use flashlights when the power fails, or why don’t the 16 year old boys go to an internet cafe for email, and each time it was a little jolt reminding me that there simply wasn’t money for that. This happened on a daily basis in some form. I don’t know how to fully convey it, but for someone who has never lived in want, being around poverty like that was almost like being in a different culture, aside even from the real cultural differences.
3. Service. We spent the majority of our two weeks prepping and painting a mural in a day care center for disabled kids and the elderly. This place was a total pit when we came in. Seriously, when we first went in there, the walls were brown with years of smear, mice were running around, half the lights were out, windows were broken, and it just felt like some sort of medieval scene. That gave me my first real shock of how unjust it was that these kids had to experience this while kids elsewhere in the world had nice classrooms. It actually motivated me at times. We had to do seemingly endless amounts of sanding, and people would tell me I was being too perfectionist, but I had this almost compulsive anger driving me, that I didn’t want these kids to be left with another shitty, peeling paint job, that at least on this one patch of wall the paint would hold for decades, because they deserved better. By the way, a good chunk of the money we raised went to buying supplies for this project: having the windows replaced, paying the professional painters that assisted us, and getting cement work done in the outside spaces. I can assure you, we bought the best paint on the market and that stuff is going to last ages. The painter we worked with barely spoke English, but every time we’d open a new bucket he’d point at it approvingly, nod his head side to side as they do in India, and say, “this is best”. I think it was good for his professional pride to be able to work with quality supplies and do a job right!
You can see the before and after pictures and I am really quite proud of what we accomplished. One of our teammates is an artist and she directed the mural of Noah’s Ark. I got to color in the rainbow, the clouds, the sheep, and the rabbits, and also did highlights on the panda bears, elephants, monkeys, and Noah’s sandals. My other contribution was to consult on the solar system’s planets (I had to explain to a couple disappointed children and teammates that Pluto didn’t make the cut because it is NOT in fact considered a planet anymore).
We had some local workers help us, but most of the sweat equity was ours. Now that was an interesting issue. I have to be honest, I kept thinking, a couple years ago at McKinsey I was helping companies outsource their operations to India to take advantage of cheap labor, and we only have 2 weeks here, so why don’t we just hire an army of local people for the cost of our daily Starbucks back in New York and get this renovation done for us, and we can spend the time more “efficiently” hanging with the kids at the orphanage. Well, there were logistical issues that prevented that, but more importantly, it ended up being a powerful witness to the kids and staff. The director told us afterwards that our willingness to come in and get covered in dust and paint for those two weeks made an incredible impression. They have western visitors pretty regularly from aid organizations and stuff, but had never seen something like this before. And all we wanted to do was get the darn mural up!
4. Inspiration. Although they have a lot of paid staff, Asha Deep really relies on a handful of people who have dedicated their life to the work. They are all Indian Christians who for various reasons felt called to come there. The director of the center and her husband - Jothi and Chethi - are just incredible. Jothi is one of these people that inspires you with her life. Pick your field of endeavor: mine is business. In that context, she’d be a successful executive. Instead she and her husband have given their life to serving this community and these children, and still managing to be fun people. For me, being around this dedication was really encouraging and made me want to take my own life and mission more seriously on my return. It also give me confidence as I think about partnering with them financially.
5. Community. Our team of 8 wonderful people worked together, ate meals together, played with the kids together, and just generally bonded. I think this is an aspect of life that we don’t get to experience that often, and it was a huge blessing.
6. Indian hospitals. There was one big cloud over our trip, which is that one of our teammates became seriously ill and spent 3 days in the hospital. Our team leader had to stay with him while they ran tons of tests on him - CT scan, MRI, x-rays, ultrasound, blood tests, spinal tap. He goth through it and made it back ok and is doing better, thank God. (It was a viral infection that the doctors suspected he actually picked up in the US).
7. McDonalds - The next time you visit India, make sure to stop by McD’s for THE BEST VEGGIE BURGER EVER.
Thank you so much again for your prayers and support. Speaking of support, the funds that you guys contributed went predominantly toward the renovations of the school, and also towards the leper colony that Asha Deep runs (which unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to visit). If anyone is looking for an opportunity for practical giving, I’d be happy to chat more about the organization and their needs.
Michael Krimm
Winter 2009 Team Witness
